From: benlizro@ihug.co.nz   
      
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assumption_of_Mary   
      
   (I can't help remembering this as the weekend we arrived in Rome and the   
   reason the Sistine Chapel was closed.)   
      
   This is a public holiday in quite a few countries: France, Italy, Spain,   
   Portugal, Malta, Croatia, Lithuania, according to my list. Also Greece   
   and Cyprus, under the name "Dormition of the Mother of God". In Costa   
   Rica it doubles as Mother's Day, and in Poland as Armed Forces Day.   
      
   So what links "assume/assumption" in   
      
   "Assume the cow is a sphere..."   
   "Assume the position!"   
      
   with the "assumption of Mary, body and soul, into Heaven" (Wiki, citing   
   Munificentissimus Deus, 1/11/1950)?   
      
   Latin, of course: assūmere 'take' < ad + sūmere.   
   The IE root of which is ....*em(!).   
   Because < *sus(e)m, where sus is a variant of sub 'up from under' (per   
   Watkins). The bare root is in emere 'obtain, buy'.   
      
   Note that in the various everyday senses the subject is doing the   
   "taking", but in Mary's case she is being "taken" - not making an   
   assumption, but being assumed.   
      
   Now what about "Dormition"?  In English this is just a rather rare   
   Latinism for sleeping or falling asleep, but particularly used for the   
   "death of the righteous" (OED).   
      
   Somewhere long ago I learned that in Russian this is Успение (Uspenie)   
   -- something like "away-sleeping". The very famous church in Moscow, the   
   Cathedral of the Dormition, uses the adjectival form: Успенский   
   собор.   
      
   What it's called in Greek took a little longer to find, but it's   
   κοίμησις (koimēsis) from κοιμαν 'put to sleep'. (Watkins has an   
   IE root   
   *kei 'to lie; bed,couch; beloved, dear'.) Apparently the only English   
   word we have from this Greek verb is "cemetery".   
      
   Enough etymology for one day.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)